Benoît Lacroix (; 8 September 1915 – 2 March 2016) was a Quebec theologian, philosopher, Dominican priest, professor in medieval studies and historian of the Medieval period, and author of almost 50 works and a great number of articles.
Biography
Early life
He was born Joachim Lacroix in Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse, Quebec, one of five children to Caïus Lacroix and Rose-Anna Blais. He studied at Collège de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière obtaining a baccalaureate in the arts in 1936. The same year, he entered the Dominican school in Saint-Hyacinthe to study religion. He was ordained a priest with the Dominican Order on 5 July 1941, obtaining a degree in theology from the Dominican University College in Ottawa in 1941. According to Pietro Boglioni, a historian who wrote a comprehensive biography of Lacroix, he was named Benoît after becoming a Dominican priest, in memory of Pope Benedict XI (in French, Benoît XI), a Dominican pope from the Middle Ages. After entering the Dominican Order, Father Benoît Lacroix wanted to travel in a mission to Europe to specialize in liturgical studies. But World War II halted his ambitions and instead he studied for a Ph.D. in Mediaeval Sciences from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto in 1951, under the guidance of philosopher, historian professor Étienne Gilson, who encouraged him to study Historiography. His thesis was titled "Les Débuts de l'historiographie chrétienne" (The Beginnings of Christian Historiography") followed by "L'Histoire dans l'antiquité" (History in Antiquity) in 1951 with a preface by historian philosopher and Early Christianity expert professor Henri-Irénée Marrou. He completed his post-doctoral studies at École pratique des hautes études, and at École Nationale des Chartes both in Paris in 1952-1953 and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1959-1960, with a bursary from the Guggenheim Fellowship.
Career
Between 1945 and 1985, he lectured at various periods at the Institute of Medieval Studies at Université de Montréal, and was appointed director of the Institute between 1963 and 1969. He was also an invited professor and lecturer at universities in Kyoto University in Japan in 1961, the National University of Rwanda in Butare, Rwanda in 1965–1966 and at the Chair of Quebec Civilisation at University of Caen Normandy, in Caen France (1973–1976).
According to historian Guy Laperrière, Benoît Lacroix's initial literary beginning were his writings about literature, art and history particularly in La Revue Dominicaine. Starting in 1962, he was collaborating with Father Henri-Marie Bradet, the founder of the publication who also founded Maintenant, another important intellectual publication. Lacroix succeeded Bradet at La Revue Dominicaine in 1985 after Bradet was stripped of his duties as editor in chief during the turbulent times of the Quiet Revolution (Révolution tranquille in French) on what became known as the "Bradet Affair" which was interpreted as a "freedom of expression" issue and his departure a result of a scheme to silence him by the Quebec provincial superior of the Dominican Order Father Thomas-M. Rondeau after having received stern warnings about Bradet from his Dominican superiors in Rome. Lacroix shaken by the affair wrote the preface to a biographical book by Denyse Boucher St-Pierre in 1973 in memory of Father Bradet.
In 1968, Lacroix founded the Centre d'études des religions populaires (Centre of Studies of Popular Religions). Between 1968 and 1971, the Centre published 12 papers, Cahiers d'études des religions populaires and organized between 1970 and 1982, 11 academic conferences about popular religion in French-speaking Catholics in Quebec, Ontario and Acadie.
In collaboration with Jacques Brault, Lacroix published a critical edition on the works of the Quebec poet and writer Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau under the title Œuvres de Saint-Denys Garneau in 1971.
From 1973 to 1976, Lacroix was director of chair of Quebec Studies at University of Caen Normandy in France, greatly encouraging the cultural and academic exchange between France and Quebec, particularly in education. Hundreds of professors and students benefited from the exchanges. After leaving the chair, the position was taken by sociologist Jean-Charles Falardeau.
In the mid-1980s, he left the academic life at the university, to work more freely as author, presenter, communicator and thinker, gaining wide fame in religious and intellectual circles in Quebec according to professor and historian Pietro Boglioni.